Today's editorial about Abu Ghraib in the Washington Post is beyond shocking. The Post outright accused the president and his administration of willfully lying about the mistreating of prisoners across Iraq and Afghanistan, including charges that US soldiers actually murdered people and then the administration tried to cover it up!
I can't even believe this is my country. I have never felt this betrayed by my government, never distrusted my president to such a degree (be he Democrat or Republican). I simply can't take any more of this. This guy has to leave. And I'm talking impeachment. If Bush has now lied to us about ongoing homicides being committed by people on his payroll, I mean, Jesus Christ.
Read this entire editorial and email it to every person you know:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S persistence in describing the abuse of foreign prisoners as an isolated problem at one Iraqi prison is blatantly at odds with the facts seeping out from his administration. These include mounting reports of crimes at detention facilities across Iraq and Afghanistan and evidence that detention policies the president approved helped set the stage for torture and homicide. Yes, homicide: The most glaring omission from the president's account is that at least 37 people have died in U custody in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and that at least 10 of these cases are suspected criminal killings of detainees by U interrogators or soldiers.
The deaths reveal much about the true nature of the still-emerging prisoner scandal. First, only a minority of them occurred at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad; nine of the 10 homicides acknowledged by the Pentagon occurred elsewhere. Second, the administration has done its best to cover up the killings: They have been reported only after news of them leaked to the media, and details about most of them are still undisclosed.
No one has been criminally charged in any of the cases, even though some date to December 2002. Investigations have been shoddy and secretive. And no senior officer or administration official has accepted responsibility or been held accountable for allowing unlawful killings to take place under his or her command. Had it not been for the leak of the photographs from Abu Ghraib, which record less serious crimes, it is probable that none of the deaths in Iraq would have become public knowledge....
It is horrifying to contemplate that U interrogators have tortured and killed foreign prisoners and that their superiors have ignored or covered up their crimes -- and yet that is where the available facts point. Pentagon officials say they will pursue investigations vigorously and that those guilty of crimes will be brought to justice. It is essential to the preservation of this country's fundamental values that they do so. It is essential also to examine the consequences in the field of policy decisions made by the most senior officials in Washington. But the sorry record of the Bush administration -- and the president's own refusal to speak the truth about it -- suggests that justice will require vigorous and sustained intervention by outside parties, beginning with Congress.
